1. Mayor Katie Wilson, who had been planning to release her “News Notes” proposal to help fund independent media on or around Independence Day, has pushed the potential ballot measure back a year, according to her office. We’ve followed up with more questions about the reason for the delay and will update this post if we hear back.
News vouchers would work much like democracy vouchers, Seattle’s public campaign finance program. If approved, the program would use a small property tax to provide funding to local news outlets that meet certain criteria, such as providing core content for free, adhering to basic standards such as factual accuracy, and having independent ownership. (Many of the details are TBD).
As they already do with democracy vouchers, Seattle residents could spend news vouchers on the outlets they want to support—providing a boost to the local news ecosystem and allowing more established independent outlets to expand their coverage.
Wilson’s team had reportedly been vetting the outlines of her plan with editorial board members at the Seattle Times, which had already started ramping up its opposition campaign—in the form of opinion pieces by their “save print newspapers” columnist Brier Dudley—as far back as 2023. The pro-news voucher camp was reportedly working to convince the Times editorial board to stay neutral on the measure, rather than opposing it…